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Author: nitrokitty

Jul 11th 2014 at 12:20:26 PM

Likewise, I don't see any particular trend towards ScienceIsBad in western sci-fi or ScienceIsGood in eastern sci-fi. You can find representatives of both in both genres, as this debate has shown. That's really not much of a distinction.

If you want to make a page contrasting western and eastern sci-fi, that's fine, but I think you're on the wrong track for that. Honestly, that's a subject that sociologists could debate endlessly about, but I'm not sure we're really qualified for that.

However, western and eastern sci-fi do have some distinct differences, just not the ones you've mentioned. For example, in the 50s and 60s, Japanese science fiction trended heavily towards the giant monster (Kaiju) genre. This reflects the country's trauma from the atomic bomb, especially seen in the original Gojira. In contrast, western sci-fi, coinciding with the RedScare, dealt a lot more with alien invaders or infiltrators, such as EarthVsFlyingSaucers, TheDayTheEarthStoodStill, or TwilightZone episodes like The Monsters On Maple Street. I think the differences are a lot more complicated than "science good" or "science bad".